


Kansas Two-Step

by colls



Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-13
Updated: 2013-01-13
Packaged: 2017-11-25 09:05:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/637284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colls/pseuds/colls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cameron Mitchell is a retired professional hockey player. John Sheppard is a new math professor at the local University.<br/>Written for camshaft22 as part of the <a href="http://sg-flyboys.livejournal.com/">sg_flyboys thing-a-thon</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Kansas Two-Step

**Author's Note:**

  * For [camshaft22](https://archiveofourown.org/users/camshaft22/gifts).



Cam folded his newspaper and stood to leave, deciding he should get himself out the door before his coffee got cold. He was growing too accustomed to lazy mornings with nothing pressing on his schedule and was frankly relieved when Mr. Wilson, a neighbor who lived up the road from his folks, asked for some help. 

He'd been home in Kansas for three months, going stir crazy and helping his dad with odds and ends. Mr. Wilson had stopped by and mentioned that he had a bit more renovation work in Topeka than he could handle right about now and did Cam want some work. 

Cam liked working with his hands and had always helped his dad around the place whether it was building something or tinkering on the Shelby. That Mustang Shelby GT500 was his father's pride and joy and Cam was surprised he was allowed near the thing after he'd borrowed it one night in high school. He was bored enough these days that he'd considered repeating that performance.

In the interest of avoiding a charge of grand theft auto, Cam readily agreed to help Mr. Wilson and was heading off to Washburn University to help install custom built bookcases and cabinets with multimedia inserts for some new professor. Mr. Wilson was the former head of maintenance before he retired and he still did odd jobs around the place. Cam liked the campus and had completed his undergrad there in applied sciences. That was before he'd gone off to L.A. 

When he arrived on campus, a grad student let Cam into an office that was still labeled Professor Dunningham. Rumor was that Professor Dunningham had died in the office and no professor had occupied it for more than a few days since. That new professors became so distressed by hauntings they demanded a new office within a week and it was so frequent that the maintenance department refused to change the name on the door.

That was the story his mother had told him over dinner last night, at least. Cam knew she liked to embellish such tales, but the office did seem to have been unoccupied for some time. It looked barren, although there was a desk in the center of the room with a couple boxes piled on top. There was a laptop, opened and a cord stretched across to a flimsy outlet in the wall. Cam moved to the opposite wall and began pulling down the old particle-board bookcases, stacking them neatly near the door. 

 

Across campus, John lingered at the cafe near the student bookstore drinking a cup of coffee. The place was relatively calm at the moment, although considering it was mid-morning and the end of the summer semester, he wasn't surprised. Fall classes started in two weeks and he doubted the place would remain sedate. He recalled how the student areas at Caltech bustled with life at all hours. He was pretty sure that, despite its fine reputation, a school out in the middle of Kansas wasn't going to hold a candle to the type of chaotic activity he'd been used to in California.

John hadn't been lying when he'd told the dean he was looking forward to returning to teaching. He wasn't angling for anything and he didn't find the school to be below his standards. The opportunity to help formulate the curriculum for a new graduate program in mathematics with an actuarial science specialization really did appeal to him. He knew the dean was somewhat suspicious and could practically see the term ‘burnout’ in his gaze. Still, the dean seemed excited to hire him, so John considered it a win.

John's thoughts drifted back to his last teaching job at Caltech two years ago. He thought about his last day there, the day he'd thought to leave quietly only to be confronted by a very pissed off boyfriend bursting into his office. 

 

"You moved out of your apartment." Cam said as way of greeting.

John avoided his gaze. "Yes, I planned on telling you when you got back." Cam's team had a streak of away games and he'd been on the road for the past week.

"I'm back." Cam stood feet shoulder width apart and folded his arms across his chest. A professional hockey player, Cam had a physical presence that was more than just his size and his intimidating posture wasn't lost on John.

For several months, John had been talking with M.I.T. about a professorship. He was a rising star at Caltech, but the opportunity with M.I.T. came with a possible grant where he could invest in some of his own R&D. He'd begun this process before he'd met Cam and it wasn't something he'd kept from him. The prospect of John’s leaving town shouldn’t be a surprise.

"An opportunity came through, one that I really can't ignore."

"And you have to leave now?"

"Yes."

Cam's posture relaxed a bit. "How long will you be gone?"

"I'm not sure. Indefinitely I think." John thought of the Air Force Colonel with the blonde hair and winning smile who used terms like deep space radar telemetry and naquada reactors and sublight communication arrays. His head was still spinning and he was both excited and terrified at the same time. 

“Well, it’s not like M.I.T. is on another planet, but still it’s a bit of a commute.”

John took a deep breath. “It’s not M.I.T.”

Cam lifted an eyebrow. "So where are you going?"

"I'm pretty sure it's classified."

"Will you be able to call? Email?" The unspoken question _Will I see you?_ hung in the air.

John lowered his eyes. "Probably not."

Cam clenched his teeth and looked around the office. "Were you just going to leave without saying anything?"

John took a deep breath. "Look, Cam…"

"Is this because I'm not coming out of the closet fast enough for you?" 

"It has nothing to do with that."

"It's not so easy, you know. I live a public life and have barely told my parents for crying out loud. I don't want everyone finding out I'm gay by watching Sports Center."

John pinched the bridge of his nose. "It has nothing to do with that, Cam. But let's face it, neither of us are exactly the commitment type."

Cam raised his voice. "What does that have to do with you leaving without saying goodbye?"

"I wasn't leaving without saying goodbye. You haven't given me a chance!"

They were standing across the desk from each other, both leaning forward with flushed faces. Neither of them said anything for several heartbeats. Cam reached into his pocket and pulled out his key ring. Removing John's apartment key, he placed it on the desk and turned to walk away.

John thought it was pretty shitty that Cam hadn't bothered to say goodbye either.

 

John cleared his head of the memory and headed back across campus to his new office. He found Frank, the head of maintenance, in the hallway outside his office changing one of the fluorescent lights. 

"Professor Sheppard. I thought maybe you'd gotten lost."

"The campus isn't that big, Frank."

"Ah, but it's a nice campus." 

"Yes, it is."

Frank climbed down from his ladder and pointed to the door to John's office. "You know there are three open offices on this floor. You sure you want this one? I'm told the radiators clang something awful in the winter time and while there may be budget for bookshelves, we aren't replacing the heating system. Mostly 'cause it still heats."

John smiled. "I don't mind noisy radiators. This office has the most windows." He tapped on the frosted windowed panel on the door that still contained the name of another professor. "Sheppard with two P's" he said,.

John opened the door and stepped into his office. He stopped abruptly just inside the doorway when he saw Cam piling up what appeared to be the remains of a cabinet. Cam met his gaze with an equally surprised expression on his face, but didn't say a word. 

Frank misinterpreted the awkward moment and scrambled to introduce them. "Cam! I didn't realize you'd arrived already.” Frank turned to John. "Professor Sheppard, this is Cam Mitchell. Cam is working with Mr. Wilson. Don't worry, Mr. Wilson will be in tomorrow to install everything just like you asked. Cam's just helping out."

"John." Cam nodded to him, ignoring Frank's comments.

"Cam." John replied. "I can honestly say it's a surprise to see you."

"Likewise."

Frank looked between them, confused. "So you know each other?" 

When neither men responded, Frank shrugged and left the room. Calling back from the hallway he said, "I'll put in an order to have the name changed on the door, Professor. It might take a couple weeks."

Cam though of the stories his mother had been telling and smiled.

"Something funny?" John asked, crossing the room with his coffee to his desk.

Cam shook his head and returned to his work. "Small town stories, that's all." 

John waited for Cam to continue, when he didn't John turned to his own work. He figured if Cam didn't want to talk, he'd be happy to oblige. He could stay silent, too. 

John didn't even last until the laptop had completed warming up. "Mind telling me how you came to be removing bookshelves from my new office in middle of Kansas?"

Cam was tempted to reply that yes, he did mind, but decided not to be confrontational. After all, it was all in the past, water under the bridge, ancient history, etc. 

"Like Frank said, I'm helping out Mr. Wilson."

"That's not what I mean. You're a professional hockey player. Does Kansas even have an NHL team?"

Cam grinned. John had never been the least bit interested in hockey. It was one of the things that Cam really liked about him, which sounded odd but he had enough people following him around L.A. because he was good on skates.

"Retired." Cam said as he stacked the last of the deconstructed shelves near the door.

"Retired?"

Cam turned to face John. Expecting sarcasm on his face, he was surprised to find concern. "Knee and hip." Cam gestured vaguely to his right side. "A couple surgeries and some rehab fixed me up, but the damage was bad enough that being checked into the boards on a regular basis would probably be a bad idea."

"So you're doing renovation work now?"

Cam shook his head. "The Wilson place is just up the road from my folks. He stopped by and mentioned he could use some help. It's not a second career or anything." Cam fidgeted for a moment. "What are you doing in Kansas? I mean, this is a good school but it's no M.I.T."

John turned his attention back to his laptop. He really didn't want to go into details.

Cam could tell John didn't want to talk about it, so he let the matter drop. The M.I.T. comment had been a bit of a cheap shot. But hell, Cam didn't want to talk about the past two years either. Things had really gone downhill for him after John had left. Not just the injury, but everything had seemed duller. 

"Well, I'll get out of your way. Mr. Wilson should be in tomorrow to start installing the new shelves."

Cam finished loading the material into the back of his truck and climbed into the cab. His hands were shaking. He let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding and thought of how much more complicated his life had just gotten. He'd love to be able to fool himself into saying he hadn't thought of John in ages, but truth was that he thought about him all the time. 

He thought about when they'd met and how he'd agonized over whether to call or not. He was pretty sure John had only expected a one-night stand, but he’d given Cam his real number and seemed both surprised and pleased when Cam had called. 

He thought about how John's face looked when he was slowly waking up in the mornings or how his face looked when he let loose and laughed. And, of course, the sex. He thought about the sex all the time. It'd been fantastic. 

But beyond that, Cam had actually thought they'd had something once. He’d thought they’d been making plans. Maybe not concrete plans, but plans. He’d introduced John to a couple of close friends, met some of John’s co-workers. Cam had even started preparing his parents to meet his boyfriend. Those sort of plans, a life-together kind of plan. It embarrassed him to admit how much it still hurt to know it'd been one-sided. 

 

Seeing Cam again had been a bolt from the blue, an uncomfortable one. John had always regretted how they'd left things, and he realized only in hindsight how much Cam meant to him. It was a perfect example of the cliche that you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. 

John wasn't sure how Cam had ended up in his life back in California. He remembered how they met, of course, and milestone events and such. What amazed him was how Cam had become such a big part of his life. 

Cam was that one night stand who said he'd call and actually called. They started hanging out, going to movies and dinner and staying the night. When the season started up and Cam had to travel so much, John missed him. Cam would text randomly during the day, and it wasn't that John didn't reply, because he did, it's just that he felt giddy and a bit childish at being so excited over the whole thing. But whenever Cam was on the road, John always kept his phone with him even if looking at Cam's texts in public made him grin like a goofball. 

Moments when he allowed himself honesty, he admitted that was beginning to panic anyway when the SGC arrived. He recognized that he has always had a fear of commitment, and while he's often the smartest man in any given room -- he's also incredibly stupid. He was struck dumb by Cam and it scared the crap out of him. 

So when a super-secret high-level think-tank knocked on his door and made him the offer of a lifetime, he took it. He took it and walked out on Cam with barely a word. He chose saving the planet and going to outer space and seeing math dance in practical applications of things that had only been theoretical. He chose wrong and it was the dumbest thing he'd ever done. 

 

It wasn't Mr. Wilson, but Cam who showed up at John's office the next day. "So, Mr. Wilson fell yesterday and hurt his back. He's not going to be able to finish this job before the semester starts."

"I hope he's okay."

Cam waved his hand, "He'll be fine, claims he only wrenched it. His wife made him go to the doctor anyway." Cam smiled, "Mrs. Wilson can be a force of nature when she wants to be."

John nodded, having no idea if Mrs. Wilson was a force of nature or not.

After an awkward pause, Cam coughed. "So... um. If you want your office put together it'll have to be me." 

"Do you know what you're doing?" John didn't intend to sound condescending, but something in the tone of his voice made Cam frown.

"They're bookshelves, they're not exactly rocket science." 

John laughed. At Cam's puzzled expression he explained. "Rocket science. It's what I've been doing for the past couple years."

Cam smiled. "Oh. At that classified place that's not M.I.T.?"

"Right." John looked at the floor in front of Cam's feet.

Cam shook his head and put up his hands. "All right, don't tell me. I'm going to go get the material out of my truck if you're okay with me doing this today."

"Want some help?"

Cam shrugged but didn't say no, so John followed him out the door.

Together they carried in the material and Cam's tool box and set to work. John asked how the L.A. Kings were doing and Cam kept up a steady stream of commentary on the state of hockey, the lockout and his mom's pie. John wasn't sure what pie had to do with hockey, but he hadn't been following the conversation that closely. He was mostly just enjoying the sound of Cam's voice. Cam had a slow cadence that was soothing with husky edge to it that was incredibly sexy. Like smooth whiskey and dark velvet.

"I'm such an idiot." John muttered, not really intending to be overheard.

Cam looked over to the piece of door John was working on. "No, you've got that one right." 

John desperately wanted to ask Cam if he was seeing anyone. He wanted to meet Cam's parents, taste his mom's pie and listen to his dad's jokes. He and Cam had been heading down that path once upon a time and he wanted to ask if it was too late to try again. Instead he merely nodded and continued working on the cabinet he was putting together.

After another few moments, John set the cabinet door down and turned to face Cam. "It's not that I didn't want to tell you where I was going, I couldn't."

"You also didn't want to." Cam replied, not bothering to stop with his work.

John ran a hand through his hair, sending spikes in even more directions than normal. "The timing was horrible. Our first… whatever. Fight seems too strong a word. And I get called for something like that and… I just…" John trailed off.

Cam studied John out of the corner of his eye. He considered the frayed edges of his shirt and the scuffed shoes that appeared to be the same ones he’d owned in L.A. He noticed John’s jaw clench and became distracted by wanting to feel the stubble on his cheek and wondering if John’s hands still felt the same. Cam suddenly didn’t care if his heart got raked over the coals again or not, he never was one to play it safe. 

"Where were you?" Cam asked after a moment.

"Officially? Antartica."

"Unofficially?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Try me."

John shook his head and picked up the cabinet door. Cam reached out and held his arm. "Try me." He repeated. John looked up and hope flared in his chest as he saw his second chance.

~the end.


End file.
